Sunday, August 7, 2011

Update (Aug. 8th): Following our report, Apple has gone ahead and released it!. Interestingly, no Thunderbolt and RAM not upgradable?!

Apple is gearing up to launch a new addition to the iMac lineup later this month that appears to be geared towards education/volume customers. The new iMac has less power than the current line of all-in-one Apple desktop computers and also has less storage space. The computer packs a last generation 3.1 GHz dual-core processor (3.06 GHz rounded up), 2 GB of DDR3 RAM, 250 GB of hard drive storage space, and the AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics processor with 256 MB of dedicated memory.

This lower-end iMac obviously has much less horsepower than the current iMac line and should be priced as such. For comparison, the entry level 21.5-inch iMac features a 2.5 GHz quad-core processor, 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, and the same AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics processor but with double the dedicated memory at 512 MB. This entry level 21.5-inch iMac is priced at $1,199, so don’t be surprised to see this less-powerful machine with a sub-$1000 price tag. For reference, Apple’s last education-geared iMac was priced at $899. A similar (more RAM, worse graphics) refurbished model is currently priced at $929 (pictured below).

Apple is expected to silently release this new machine later this month. As always, thanks Mr. X.

Users who migrate from MobileMe to iCloud will retain their 20GB of yearly storage when the service launches sometime this fall. All individual MobileMe accounts included 20GB of storage per year, leading some users to be concerned about iCloud base storage of 5GB. These users should not fear, though, as Apple is letting users keep the 20GB of MobileMe storage and is adding it to the 5GB that already come with iCloud. Furthermore, users who migrate from MobileMe will get 25GB of iCloud storage from the start, and will not have to worry about paying an extra fee.

iOS 5′s speech-to-text functionality appears like it will actually be happening, and we have the screenshot to prove it. A reliable source has sent us the above screenshot which details how the iOS 5 speech-to-text functionality will be activated. As you can see, it is quite simple. Just click the microphone icon next to the space key and start talking. Once the key is clicked, a new microphone overlay will appear as long as you are talking. After that, the text will appear in the text field as you can see in the screenshot above.

This is of course software in beta testing, so the final version may appear differently, at least we know it is actually in testing right now. Another tidbit, from our source, is that the functionality is only planned for Apple’s smaller devices – iPhone and iPod touch – but iPad support could technically make its way in to iOS 5. This would be similar to Apple keeping features like Notification Center widgets and Voice Control as exclusives to the iPhone and iPod touch. Thanks, Mars Volta.